Hitachi Plans Hypervisor for the Xeon

Hitachi is bringing the concept of the embedded hypervisor to more affordable platforms with its recent introduction of the Xeon-based BladeSymphony 1000 system.

The platform includes a version of the Virtage system, previously found only on the Itanium package. But unlike typical embedded hypervisors from VMware and XenSource, Hitachi loads its system into the firmware of the service processor to allow for greater access to all blades in the chassis and to extend control to individual server components, like the I/O interface.

The company also claims a security advantage since the hypervisor is better protected from unauthorized access than if it were placed in flash memory.

The new BladeSymphony 1000 should be particularly welcome news for RHEL and Windows Server 2003 users, who will be able to jump right onto the system without specialty drivers.

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